Sandy Weill turns 76 today. Jean-Georges Vongerichten is turning 52. Mixologist Sasha Petraske is 36. Peaches Geldof is turning 20. Brooke Burns is 31. Congressman Joseph Crowley turns 47. CNN's Reynolds Wolf is 39. Actress Lauren Graham turns 42. Jerry Lewis is 83. Game show host Chuck Woolery turns 68. Erik Estrada is 60. And Flavor Flav celebrates his 50th today.
• Lindsay Lohan certainly had an eventful weekend. After a judge issued a warrant for her arrest on Friday, Lindsay had a meltdown on Twitter and ended up in a fight with Sam Ronson that was so intense, the cops had to be called. It's not over yet: She's scheduled to appear in court today, although she may not show. [People, Gawker, TMZ, NYP]
• Olivia Palermo isn't making friends in her Tribeca apartment building. She strutted past the people gathered in the lobby last Thursday "completely oblivious" to the fact that one of the building's apartments was on fire. [P6]
• Gwyneth Paltrow and her trainer Tracy Anderson are having trouble finding people to pay $4,500 to join their new Tribeca gym. What a surprise. [P6]
• Is AIG officially the most despised company in America? Following the disclosure over the weekend that execs planned to go ahead with $165 million in bonuses to top execs comes word that a good deal of the billions in bailout money it received went to banks like Goldman Sachs ($12.9 billion), Merrill Lynch ($6.8 billion), and Bank of America ($5.2 billion). [BN, NYT, WSJ]
• Larry Summers: "There are a lot of terrible things that have happened in the last 18 months, but what's happened at AIG is the most outrageous." [BN]
• UBS plans to cut another 5,000 jobs. [Reuters]
• A camera crew followed Rachel Zoe around during Paris Fashion Week, which means the second season of her Bravo reality show is headed your way. [FWD]
• Dov Charney's cash-strapped American Apparel is selling 18 percent of the company to a private equity firm to pay down some of its debt. [BN]
• The hat Aretha Franklin wore to the inauguration in January? More than 5,000 orders have been placed since then. At $179 a pop, no less. [NYT]
• Video of Karl Lagerfeld at Paris Fashion Week. [NYM]
• What's Sofia Coppola up to these days? She's directing perfume ads for Dior, that's what. [NYT/The Moment]
• Marc Jacobs and Lorenzo Martone are on their way to Brazil for a little post-fashion season R&R, in case you're interested. [FWD]
• LA Fashion Week begins tonight! [Racked, Stylefile]
Bernie Madoff's lawyers filed documents in court today detailing all of his assets and monthly expenses. (They were submitted as part of an appeal to release him from prison prior to his sentencing in June; good luck with that.) The documents indicate Madoff had assets worth $823 million as of the end of last year, although $700 million of that consists of his stake in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, and his company may be worth a tad less than that given what's transpired the past few months. (If, however, you're interested in paying that kind of money for the prestigious firm that bears the Madoff name, Lazard Frères would be positively delighted to hear from you.) As for his expenses, Madoff says that it costs him $326,757.85 a month to maintain his various homes, boats, and household employees. So where does all that money go exactly? You can go here to see every line item. Or click on the photo above for a few totally random details pulled from the court documents. [NYT]
• Why, yes, of course there's a shawarma lunch cart in Midtown named after Barack Obama. [ML]
• The good news/bad news about Minetta Tavern. [Eater]
• A roundup of restaurants slated to open next week. [TONY]
• The Four Seasons Hotel is opening a "caviar lounge" on March 23. Genius. That's totally what NYC needs. [GS]
• Padma Laskshmi supposedly flipped out when she and elderly boyf Teddy Forstmann were forced to wait for a table at Schiller's last night. [Gawker]
• Most BYOB restaurants are breaking the law, it turns out. Also? Stretch limos that serve booze are in violation, too. Please take note, Mineola. [Crains]
Did you know that Bill Clinton has been in Haiti this week on a humanitarian mission with Wyclef Jean? Neither did we. But it sounds like a like change of pace from traveling with shady billionaire Ron Burkle. When the two aren't feeding the poor, the two can always chat about Wyclef's rather expansive video collection. The press release is below.
Jim Cramer is a buffoon and dispenses terrible advice; by all accounts, he was a mediocre hedge fund manager before he even became a media celebrity. But he has a long track record for legally questionable behavior, too, as numerous people have pointed out over the years. Gawker has a good roundup of the charges that have been lobbed Cramer's way over the years. [Gawker]
Good news! It looks like Russian mogul Valery Kogan and his wife Olga are finally on their way to building the 21,127-square-foot mansion of their dreams! After more than a year of battles with neighbors and the Greenwich planning commission over plans to tear down the existing 19,000-square-foot mansion to build an even bigger manse in its place—one with 15 bathrooms, Finnish and Turkish baths, and an electric guitar-shaped outdoor patio surrounded by "guitar god" statues, no less—the board has finally relented and given the Kogans the go-ahead. The board concluded it couldn't "make decisions on aesthetics," even though the home would probably be a "sore thumb for the neighbors." Naturally, the prospect of increased property taxes for the cash-strapped town had no influence in the decision whatsoever.
It's probably safe to assume that Amy Odell, the editor of New York magazine's fashion blog, The Cut, won't be on the guest list for Lauren Santo Domingo's Christmas party this year. Late yesterday, Odell posted a scathing critique of the socialite, Vogue contributing editor, and wife of Colombian heir Andres Santo Domingo. Why? It seems Santo Domingo couldn't get her hands on a pair of black $1,800 Hussein Chalayan boots that have been all the rage recently. So she did what any other dedicated fashionista would do: She took a pair of similar boots in brown and customized them to look just like the Chalayan ones. Vogue posted Santo Domingo's tale of "fashion dedication" online; Odell responded by suggesting Santo Domingo wasn't "important enough" to get her hands on the genuine article, and said her effort to recreate them was something that "no one with a real job would ever have the time, money, or energy to even think about doing." Totally true! The problem is that not long after, New York removed any trace of the story from its website. Did Vogue put pressure on New York to remove the offending piece? Did Anna bitch Adam out? Hard to say! An email to Odell asking for an explanation went unanswered. But we saved a cached version for you, which you can read here.
Bernie Madoff would like to return home to his Upper East Side penthouse. The Metropolitan Correctional Center? It's not such a fun place to be, apparently! Madoff's lawyer, Ira Sorkin, filed an appeal today and is now asking that Madoff be permitted to return to house arrest at his duplex on East 64th Street. An appeals court will likely deliver a decision later today. In the meantime, though, you're welcome to refer to him as federal inmate No. 61727-054. [NYDN]
• Jon Stewart's showdown with Jim Cramer is getting mixed reviews, mainly because both deviated from their typical personas: the normally brash Cramer was a wimp and Stewart wasn't funny. It "felt like a Senate subcommittee hearing," writes Alessandra Stanley. [NYT, Salon, Atlantic, ABC]
• TMZ and Extra have extended their coverage to the financial services industry! Isn't it ironic that TMZ has exposed more corporate misbehavior over the past few months than CNBC has? Because it sort of has. [NYT]
• Google sales chief Tim Armstrong is the new chairman and CEO of AOL. [WSJ]
• Jim Kelly is stepping down as managing editor of Time Inc. [NYP]
• Fox has dumped Peter Liguori in favor of Fox Searchlight's Peter Rice. [THR]
• More changes are ahead at the Peter Brant-owned Interview. [WWD]
• Mel Karmazin says Sirius's poor performance last quarter was due to "doom and gloom" rumors suggesting the company would go bankrupt. [WSJ]
• Jimmy Fallon finished his first week with solid ratings, beating out the numbers that Conan O'Brien typically generated. Depressing, huh? [Variety]
It isn't easy to be a gold digger in a deep recession. You can't just expect to hit a club and find bankers standing on banquettes with a bottle of Cristal in one hand and a handful of $100 bills in the other. And you can't just stand outside the Lamborghini dealership on Long Island and expect to meet that special someone. Conspicuous consumption is out and even the men who could afford a Lambo if they wanted one aren't buying them. Fear not! You just need to make a few small adjustments and boost your chances of meeting an absurdly wealthy man willing to shower you with gifts for years and years—or at least until someone younger, blonder, and cuter comes along. After the jump, a few suggestions!
If you've had a crappy week/month/year, here's some profound and heartfelt advice from novelist-philosopher Plum Sykes: "It's good to remember to laugh at life, especially when times are hard." Before you groan and ask exactly how hard times can be when you're a pathologically overconfident and overpaid writer who's drowning in designer clothes and married to a man with millions, remember that Plum once worked for Anna Wintour, so she too has walked through life's dark and tragic abyss. And why not follow her noble example of appreciating the little things in life? "When my black tulips in a bed of blue forget-me-nots flower at my country house," she shares, "the pink champagne will come out!" There, aren't you humbled and inspired?
Corcoran brokers will no longer be able to use words like "professional," "exclusive," and "quiet" in apartment ads. "Professional" is a no-go because it implies the apartment is only available to people who work in a specific industry; describing it as "exclusive" might be construed as "racially exclusive." No one seems to know why "quiet" and "safe" were added to Corcoran's new list of 200 banned words, although deception is still totally fine: "It is not against the law for brokers to describe a coffin-sized studio as 'cozy.'" [NYP]
Apparently it takes more than the worst economic meltdown of our lifetimes to cure America of its cheerily naive belief—still disproven by statistics—that success in life is more due to hard work than the random lottery of who your parents are. The results of a survey released yesterday showed that people still widely believe in "the American Dream," with the majority of respondents saying that they expected to get ahead despite the economy, and that ambition was more important than external factors. So in the spirit of our rose-tinted brethren, we will view this as the very optimism that will bring our country back to prosperity, rather than a psychological defense mechanism evolved to suppress what would otherwise be an irresistible urge to riot and pillage on Park Avenue.
• David Krell, who founded the International Securities Exchange and retired as the company's CEO in 2008, has paid $7.6 million for a 34th-floor apartment the Trump International on Central Park West. [Cityfile]
• I Trulli owners Astrid and Nicola Marzovilla have sold their six-story townhouse at 129 East 36th Street for $7.28 million. The buyer: The Republic of Chad on behalf of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Chad to the United Nations. [Cityfile]
• Artist Robert Wilson has put his one-bedroom duplex at 3 Great Jones Street, where painter Mark Rothko once lived, on the market for $2.75 million. [WSJ]
